Tenebrae
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- Joined
- Mar 21, 2005
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- 3,999
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So, I was browsing the PS Store the a few days ago, and found out that the venerable online game Star Trek Online is available there, and for free! I decided to give it a shot; I don't like MMOs all that much but I had heard good things about this one, and my first contact (hehe) with it was very pleasant. I created my character, a sexy Federation blonde lady with a commanding presence, and dived in. Good gameplay; ground combat is like a comical pastiche of Mass Effect while space combat feels like a more RPG-esque iteration of Star Trek: Bridge Commander. All in all, I was having a good time, and the storyline was decent as well as very true to the source material. My only complaint about it is that I would have loved it even better if the dialogue options actually had an impact on the story; honestly not too much to ask, I think.
However it wasn't long before server issues quickly put an end to my sexy captain's adventures in the final frontier. Massive lags, abrupt disconnections, worst rubberbanding ever all made the game unplayable. It was frustrating as hell, although not devoid of a certain humorous feel, as there were plenty of times where the Benny Hill theme would not have been out of place while my character was catapulted back 10 meters every few seconds
The most hilarious were the other players on my team getting increasingly desperate by my lack of support and communication as my spaceship was essentially speeding way past all its targets or alternately remaining stuck in place because the server was scrupulously ignoring all my inputs. And I was unable to explain that because my microphone got jammed like a WWII radio during a thunderstorm while my allies' own ships were getting a beating from the AI.
Then I realized: "hold on, you're playing from China, but your PS4 was bought in Hong-Kong and is connected to the French PSN, so maybe your machine is somehow trying to reach a server that's too distant?". So I decided to switch to my PC, on Steam, which is wonderfully reliable in China by the way, contrary to EA's Origin, to see whether I would notice a difference. At the very least, I knew I would have better options than on console, such as a choice of servers, proxies, this sort of thing. I quickly created a new account (easiest registration process in the gaming world, btw), but then when I clicked options I knew something was already fishy when the only two locations listed were the EU and USA. Sorry Asia, Africa, Central/South America and Canada, I guess? The best was when I pressed "enter" after typing my login info and a message popped up, in an ominous red font: login is blocked from this location.
I should have been mad but the irony of it all made me laugh, to be honest
Perfect World, the company that runs STO is a CHINESE company, based in BEIJING, the very city where I live! The servers I am attempting to reach are at most one subway ride from my home, so I could in theory plug into them directly with an Ethernet or USB cable if I so wished. Instead, they chose to block them. WHAT...THE...HELL ?!
Seriously, this is 2020, guys. The Internet is no longer in its infancy. And yet American companies, back in the 90's when all we had were 56k routers, used to offer way better services to their customers around the WHOLE world than that. Back then I could play Starcraft or Diablo on an LA based server with no lag whatsoever. I could create my own Rainbow Six or Counterstrike server with minimal difficulty. Hell, in 2013, I played EVE Online from Beijing, which is hosted a SINGLE server based in ICELAND, and did not experience any connection issues whatsoever. And yet, here we are in 2020 and I cannot play a Chinese-owned game while I am in freaking China. I do not understand, this seems so contrary to common as well as business sense. I mean, don't they want more customers? More people playing means more money for them, right? For crying out loud...
Oh and I don't think it's a censorship issue either. I have been to a Star Trek convention in the CBD area of Beijing just a few years ago. There were people dressed in the show's costumes as well as replicas of the starships' interiors and all. No way the government would have allowed it if Star Trek was banned.
However it wasn't long before server issues quickly put an end to my sexy captain's adventures in the final frontier. Massive lags, abrupt disconnections, worst rubberbanding ever all made the game unplayable. It was frustrating as hell, although not devoid of a certain humorous feel, as there were plenty of times where the Benny Hill theme would not have been out of place while my character was catapulted back 10 meters every few seconds
The most hilarious were the other players on my team getting increasingly desperate by my lack of support and communication as my spaceship was essentially speeding way past all its targets or alternately remaining stuck in place because the server was scrupulously ignoring all my inputs. And I was unable to explain that because my microphone got jammed like a WWII radio during a thunderstorm while my allies' own ships were getting a beating from the AI. Then I realized: "hold on, you're playing from China, but your PS4 was bought in Hong-Kong and is connected to the French PSN, so maybe your machine is somehow trying to reach a server that's too distant?". So I decided to switch to my PC, on Steam, which is wonderfully reliable in China by the way, contrary to EA's Origin, to see whether I would notice a difference. At the very least, I knew I would have better options than on console, such as a choice of servers, proxies, this sort of thing. I quickly created a new account (easiest registration process in the gaming world, btw), but then when I clicked options I knew something was already fishy when the only two locations listed were the EU and USA. Sorry Asia, Africa, Central/South America and Canada, I guess? The best was when I pressed "enter" after typing my login info and a message popped up, in an ominous red font: login is blocked from this location.
I should have been mad but the irony of it all made me laugh, to be honest
Perfect World, the company that runs STO is a CHINESE company, based in BEIJING, the very city where I live! The servers I am attempting to reach are at most one subway ride from my home, so I could in theory plug into them directly with an Ethernet or USB cable if I so wished. Instead, they chose to block them. WHAT...THE...HELL ?! Seriously, this is 2020, guys. The Internet is no longer in its infancy. And yet American companies, back in the 90's when all we had were 56k routers, used to offer way better services to their customers around the WHOLE world than that. Back then I could play Starcraft or Diablo on an LA based server with no lag whatsoever. I could create my own Rainbow Six or Counterstrike server with minimal difficulty. Hell, in 2013, I played EVE Online from Beijing, which is hosted a SINGLE server based in ICELAND, and did not experience any connection issues whatsoever. And yet, here we are in 2020 and I cannot play a Chinese-owned game while I am in freaking China. I do not understand, this seems so contrary to common as well as business sense. I mean, don't they want more customers? More people playing means more money for them, right? For crying out loud...
Oh and I don't think it's a censorship issue either. I have been to a Star Trek convention in the CBD area of Beijing just a few years ago. There were people dressed in the show's costumes as well as replicas of the starships' interiors and all. No way the government would have allowed it if Star Trek was banned.
